


by the skin of one's teeth

by vorpalblades



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Gen, Post-Series, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 10:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8529136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vorpalblades/pseuds/vorpalblades
Summary: What happens to vampires during the zombie apocalypse?





	

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been a very long time since I’ve written anything. This has been sitting in my WIP folder for a while now, and I thought I’d finish up a little something to make myself feel like less of a slacker.

It’s a long, dizzying fall from the top of the food chain.

*

There are things a vampire must know to survive in this new world. One, zombies make no noise, in the ways that matters to a vampire. They have no heartbeat, no breath, nothing that once would alert one of his kind to a threat. 

Two, they can walk in sunlight.

Three, to them, flesh is flesh, regardless of how long it’s been since it was considered living.

And four, vampires must never feed from the already dead. It’s the most important lesson of all, one that too many end up learning the hard way.

*

Her name is Maddie, short for Madeline, she’s fifteen, and she saves him with a shovel.

He was so tired, with nights of flying and days of keeping vigilant watch. As dawn had approached, he’d hid in an old school, found a dark corner in the basement boiler room to catch a quick nap. Wakes to putrid, rotten breath on his face, and his reactions are so dulled that he can only sit there, numb.

The shovel makes a hollow clang noise when it connects with the zombie’s head, and she stabs the point of the blade clean through its neck.

She saves his life; he spares hers.

_This place was safe until you showed up_. Her smile is brittle, and her hands keep shaking as she tries to tie up her ponytail again. _You’re cramping my style, man._

They stay together for six days. She doesn’t question why he can only forage at night or why he passes on the food they sometimes find, but occasionally she gives him this look, skeptical and analyzing.

On day seven, Maddie’s setting traps upstairs. He hears glass breaking, and she screams, long cries that turn wet. The clock on the wall says it’s noon; there’s not a cloud in the sky, and he burns the entirety of his right arm as he runs for the nearest sewer entrance.

*

One would think that, after having actually lived through the Dark Ages, he would not have any issues adapting to a world without technology. Cell towers, power grids, gasoline production... one by one, they all shut down. Civilization backslides quickly.

But technology had become a security blanket. Without it, humanity has to rely on instinct again, pays attention when those little hairs rise on the back of their necks, feels hungry eyes upon them all of the time.

It makes them paranoid, which means feeding becomes difficult. People are less likely to wander on their own, without the safety of numbers. Small communities are hesitant to allow strangers to join their group. Humans are even more alarmed by sudden weaknesses, even if they’re unaware it’s due to blood loss rather than infection, and more than once suspicious eyes settle on him as a cause. 

He always leaves before they decide to take action.

*

For once, he’s glad for his lack of reflection, how he never regained it like his Nicolas did. He can barely stand to look at the others when he stumbles upon them, their faces gaunt and sallow in various states of eternal starvation, some with crackled skin and gums so receded that they’ve lost all other teeth but their fangs. Their eyes have sunken in, now wild with hunger and desperation, and he wonders how many of them would try to feed from him to replenish their strength if he wasn’t older with some lingering air of power.

He can see parts of himself though. His hands, mostly, so drawn and _frail_ like he would never have imagined himself. He spends his days staring at them, thin bone and jutting knuckles veiled by nearly translucent skin.

_I once had my likeness carved in marble_ he thinks, before his stomach crawls in on itself yet again.

*

He remembers saying not too long ago that a man who knows he will not die is a young man. Lucien LaCroix has lived a long, long time, but never before has he felt so very old.


End file.
